


There's a million eyes (I don't care if they're watching)

by lookatallthemoresigive



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: 5 Times, Alternate Universe - Popstar, Annabeth and Percy are solo artists who tour together, M/M, Percy was in a boyband, Popstar!Will, Pyrotechnican!Nico, whatever nico is paid it is not enough, will is super bossy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-25
Updated: 2016-03-25
Packaged: 2018-05-23 07:55:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6110104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lookatallthemoresigive/pseuds/lookatallthemoresigive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are five indisputable facts Nico learns about Will Solace while touring with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There's a million eyes (I don't care if they're watching)

**Author's Note:**

> When your boyband loving good friend starts shipping Solangelo but stubbornly only reads Wattpad fics for the ship, it becomes remarkably easy to come up with a birthday present for her. Since she's already read and squeed over it, I figured I'd post up a revamped version here. Hope you enjoy!

_i._

Will Solace was born with an instrument in his hand.

Nico has been a pyrotechnician for a couple of years now, but he's never seen someone play so many instruments so well. Guitar, piano, bass, drums, he varies it by venue.

“Is it genetic?” Nico asks during their San Francisco show when Will pulls out a lute. “Being able to play anything?”

“There's debate about that. I just never found one instrument that perfectly fit me, so I mix it up. At least I didn't get his mullet.” Both Will and Nico shudder at the thought. Nico had once gotten a ride from his father (a long, harrowing story), and he is grateful every day that musical ability and a slight physical resemblance are all the traits Will shares with the 80s rockstar.

“Remember, there's going to be a column of flames behind you when you finish _Half-Blood_ , so stay in position for that.”

“Thanks Nico.”

“Knock ‘em dead, sunshine,” the words leave his mouth before he can even process them, but much to his relief Will just smiles.

Nico always watches every show from backstage, but usually he's focused on making sure the show doesn't go up in flames or down as a dud, with the songs only registering as cues.

It's impossible to do that with Will, though. Like the singer himself his songs demand to be listened to and enjoyed. Even at his most focused Nico throughout the show finds himself absently tapping to the beat, smiling at Will's infectious grin, and fondly rolling his eyes at his bantering with the crowd between songs.

"He's good," Annabeth Chase says as she waits besides Nico for her final bow, readjusting her lucky Yankees cap.

"He is," Nico says as Will finishes up the song, the end notes drowned out by the roar of the crowd.

 

“So,” Percy Jackson says after the show he, Annabeth, and Will were contractually obligated to play together. “You enjoying touring with Will?"

“Yeah,” Nico says as he watches Will talk with Lee, his drummer, inside of the tour bus. “I am.”

“We're happy for you,” Annabeth says, and he's always liked her, even in his weaker moments, but seeing them hold hands still causes a dull ache in his heart. “Keep in touch, Nico.” They turn to leave but Nico stops them.

“I think it's time to clear the air,” Nico says. He takes a deep breath.  “A while ago, I had had a crush on you, Percy, but I'm totally over it. You're cute, but you're not really my type.”

“What?” Percy sputters, “Not your type?”

“Di Angelo!” Will calls, his head peeking out of the bus.

“See you around, guys.” Annabeth has always been the smartest out of all of them, so she gives him a high-five with a knowing smirk, which he sheepishly returns.

“I'm the bad boy! Who doesn't like the bad boy? I am literally everyone's type! That is my type!” Nico hears Percy say as he jogs off towards the bus.

“You're my type.”

“But not his!” And though Will raises an eyebrow at Nico’s uncharacteristic laughter as he shuts the door, he doesn't question it.

 

_ii._

Will never changes the pronouns when he covers songs. He does a lot of covers, always a new one each venue, and they're usually a late 90s girl group. His songs, when Nico looks into it, don't have any female pronouns. Percy’s songs always had at least one. Will’s are all in second person.

He tries not to get his hopes up. Really, he knows better. But he can't help but smile when Will whips out his ukulele to play Teenage Dream at Mandalay Bay.

But that smile is gone the next day, when they're out on the road. Nico had been given his choice of bunks, and since there are an odd number of roadies the other bunk was left over. It feels like a metaphor for his life.

“You're grumpier than usual,” Will says cheerfully as he sits next to Nico. He really wishes he had chosen a top bunk, but even that probably wouldn't deter him. Will's bunk is far too close for Nico's sanity. He sulks further into himself. “What's wrong?”

“Well, sunshine, we're on the highway to hell.”

Will raises an eyebrow. “I never pegged you for an AC/DC fan.”

“Driving from Las Vegas to LA, which is my father's domain? We're going straight to the inner rings.”

Nico watches as the pieces finally clicked into place.

“It was this route, isn't it? Where your sister-”

“I don't want to talk about it!” Nico shouts, the venom leaving his mouth before he can stop it. Will leans back, blinks, and then straightens his shoulders.

“Nico, traumatic events affect you even if you don't witness them firsthand. So you can talk to either me, Maurice the on-call therapist, or Mr. Stuffington the Bear. In my professional opinion, I'm in the most attractive option of the three.”

“Why do you have an on-call therapist?”

“Do I need to point out how screwed up this industry is?”

Nico laughs bitterly.

“You don't have to talk about it now. But I'm here whenever you need it.” Will pats the bed and then lifts himself up. 

"Wait," Nico blurts out, and Will cautiously sits back down.

Nico fiddles with his silver skull ring for a few moments and then takes a deep breath.

“My mom was basically from the 1800s. Old school Roman Catholic, I'm not sure how she and my father,” Nico shook his head. “She raised my sister and I until we were nine, and then one day there was was a fire. Father thinks it was one of his competitors, but he's always been paranoid. He got us out but, but she didn't make it.”

Will nods in understanding, but not pity. It gives Nico the strength to keep going.

“Dad shipped us off to boarding school, and it became just the two of us against the world. Bianca was the only one who truly knew me, who accepted me. Then along came Percy Jackson,” Nico curls his hand into a fist. “He was dashing and charming and basically the posterboy for the perfect boyband front man. Bianca was always good at the guitar. So he introduced her to the Hunters of Artemis, and they all went off on tour together. I was too young to go, and Father wanted me to learn the family business. So, I stayed in LA. You know the headlines. I quietly filed to be an emancipated minor, got in with a road crew who overlooked my age, ended up working for my father, and now I'm here.” He makes a sweeping gesture of their cramped living quarters.

Will is silent for a really long time. He's going to leave him now, Nico thinks wildly, slip him that therapist hotline and never talk to him again and that's okay Nico doesn't care he really doesn't care he shouldn't have even said anything but it's not a big deal because everyone always leaves him, so he leaves them first.

“My first boyfriend dumped me on my birthday.”

“That sucks,” Nico says. “Wait, what?”

“Will!” Austin peeks his head in from the couches. “You're needed on a conference call.”

“Thanks Austin,” Will stands up and squeezes Nico’s shoulder and for once Nico doesn't mind the contact. “And thank you for trusting me enough to open up to me. We'll talk more later.” Nico blinks and he's gone.

Nico settles back into his bunk to take a quick power nap, and he falls asleep with a small smile on his face for the first time in years.

 

_iii._

Will really wants to be a doctor.

This is something any teen rag could tell you, that he just considers being a popstar a “gap year” and was planning to do premed somewhere in California, if the amount of colleges he plays there is any indication.

But any thought that it was just a persona is squashed as soon as Nico is crushed under three tons of sound equipment.

One moment the only thing he can see is a red outline of pain, and the next Will’s concerned face swims into view, and he can vaguely feel his hands on Nico’s leg.

“Can the darkness just swallow me whole right now,” Nico mutters.

“Nope, you are staying conscious, goth boy. Tell me how much this hurts.” Will presses down firmly and Nico lets out an anguished gasp.

“I'm going to need some bandages! We need to take him to the hospital,” Will says, but his voice sounds distant, and it would be so easy for Nico to just close his eyes.

He starts to, but then he feels himself being lifted up, and so he latches onto the closest surface for support, which just happens to be Will’s neck.

“You wrote _In(vulnerable)_ , didn't you?”

“What?” Nico is pretty sure he's on death's door and his crush is asking about a top forty hit from three years ago.

“You wrote it for Percy’s solo album, or helped write it. I heard you play the melody on the piano last week when you thought nobody was looking.” Nico hears a car door open and Will ducks down, gently lowering them into a backseat.

Will lets go of him and reaches out to grab something. “Death grip is going to make this a little hard, di Angelo.” Nico lets go of his neck like he'd been burned. Since Will is taller and larger than Nico’s skeletal frame, he fits neatly in his lap. “Talk or I'll keep guessing.”

“The label was pressuring him for a single, and I, I thought,” Nico shakes his head, the world spinning a bit as he does so. “The song, helping him, I thought that he'd fall in love with me. I was young, and stupid.”

Will tears an ace bandage and holds Nico’s leg steady as he carefully bandages it up.

“He rewrote most of the bridges, and they changed up the melody, but he wanted me to have producer credit. When I realized who the rewrites were about, I refused. Then I left.”

“It's a beautiful song, Nico. You should have taken the credit.”

“My dad knew, and told me he was proud. That's all I needed.”

The next day he'll get an email from the label, twenty texts from Annabeth, five missed calls from Hazel, and confined to the hospital for three days. The doctors will tell him it would've been four more if he hadn't had such excellent immediate medical assistance, but it still feels like forever. Will will play Mythomagic (how he finds out, he'll never know) with him for most of the days, and his fellow crewmates will come and talk to him in rhyming couplets to annoy him into better health. The way Will strokes his hair now, though, makes it all almost worth it.

 

_iv._

Will Solace is objectively, indisputably, hot.

The blond singer bounces in place as wardrobe and his stylist buzzes around him, and whips off his shirt.

“Nico! How am I sounding?” It's hard to focus on his face when his definitely not photoshopped surfer abs are, well, glistening.

“Uh,” Nico says, because he's pretty sure his brain just melted. “Um.”

Will finally has the decency to put on the goddamn shirt that Kayla hands him and Nico tries again to sound like a normal human being. “Good enough for that new fog machine you're getting me. You ready for your encore, sunshine?”

“Why do you always call me that?” Will asks.

“Because you're like the sun; so obnoxious that being in direct contact with you for too long gives me a headache.”

“You love me,” Will crows, and runs back onstage before Nico can deny it.

 

Seven hours later Nico feels a gentle touch on his forearm, and two thoughts rush to mind: 

  1. It is 3 AM
  2.  He is going to murder Will



"Get dressed, hurry." The warm feeling of Will's breath on his ear dulls his instinctual rage at being woken, so the pillow Will sidesteps becomes more of a half-hearted symbol of protest than the deadly heat-seeking missile he intended it to be.

By the time Nico puts on his scarf he realizes he should probably be a lot more concerned at how automatically he follows Will's orders.

The always humming tour bus comes to a halt, and the engine is quietly killed. As the driver goes to refuel Will leaves a note on his seat and they silently make a break for it.

The dancing snowflakes that had lured him to sleep only a few hours prior are now flurries assailing his face and nestling in his hair, indifferent to the hour.

Will drags him away from the bus and the rustic gas station, the freshly fallen snow crunching under their boots like gunshots in the icy stillness.

At last he seems to find what he was looking for and stops, flinging his arms out wide as if he's presenting the universe to Nico.

He is, in a way, except the universe is a rolling sea wave of snow laden trees, blanketing the Colorado mountains with green and white, nestled under a dazzling array of thousands of crisp, clear stars.

They drink in the scene together in solemn silence, until Nico's body betrays him with chattering teeth.

Will throws a shoulder over him and Nico burrows into his side.

"You're a furnace," he tells him, and he can feel Will's smile.

All too soon Will guides them back onto the bus. They ignore the driver's knowing smirk and carefully undress, the snow quickly melting into puddles under the blasting heaters.

 _Thank_ _you,_ is the last thought on Nico's mind as he drifts back to sleep, but he's not sure which one of them says it out loud.

 

_v._

“Last show,” Will says, adjusting his guitar strap as he waits behind the curtain.

“Last show,” Nico agrees, double checking the wiring on Will’s outfit. They had tested this a dozen times, but he didn't want the headlines tomorrow to read Will Solace: The Boy On Fire (Literally). Satisfied, he starts to move away, but Will grabs his shoulder and holds him in place.

There are dozens of people backstage. Fellow roadies, crew from the venue, maybe even some lucky VIP. Any one of them could look their way, could see how close they're standing, how red Nico’s face is.

Will glances down at Nico’s lips, and he feels like the dead butterflies in the pit of his stomach suddenly reanimated and are beating furiously against his ribs.

“Nico,” Will starts to say, but Nico doesn't let him finish.

The final thing Nico learns is that kissing Will Solace is like swallowing a lit match. He's burning from the inside, drowning in the flames, the synchronized beating of their hearts his only tether to reality.

_One._

_Two._

_Three._

_Four._

He breaks their kiss with a grin, pushing Will back and through the curtain.

Later, he'll watch the footage a hundred times. He won't be sure what he loves more, the bewildered expression on Will’s face as he stumbles onstage, or the thousand of fan conspiracies for the reason ( _Maybe he just got blinded by his own hotness???)_. When he kisses him for the second, third, fourth, fifth time he'll know he loves Will himself the most.

But for now he slinks back into the shadows, his heart beating out of his chest as he touches his lips and smiles.

Tweet by @Will_Solace

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, I must confess, I've only read up to the House of Hades, so I know Nico well enough but Will is a bit of a mystery. Hopefully I did enough fandom lurking and wiki reading that he seems in character. Thanks for reading!


End file.
